CMS pre­scribes pay­ment fix to re­sus­ci­tate US an­tibi­ot­ic in­dus­try

As the UK ex­per­i­ments with a sub­scrip­tion-style pay­ment sys­tem to re­sus­ci­tate the fledg­ling an­tibi­ot­ic in­dus­try — in the Unit­ed States, the Cen­ters for Medicare & Med­ic­aid Ser­vices (CMS) is work­ing on re­struc­tur­ing the pay­ment ap­pa­ra­tus for new an­tibi­otics to re­vi­tal­ize an­timi­cro­bial de­vel­op­ment and res­cue ex­ist­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers.

For one of the biggest threats to glob­al health, the li­on’s share of an­tibi­ot­ic de­vel­op­ment is tak­ing place in a hand­ful of labs of small bio­phar­ma com­pa­nies as a ma­jor­i­ty of their larg­er coun­ter­parts fo­cus on more lu­cra­tive en­deav­ors. In re­cent months, a hand­ful of an­tibi­ot­ic de­vel­op­ers — in­clud­ing Achao­gen and Tetraphase — have seen their val­ue go up in smoke as fee­ble sales frus­trate growth.

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